Of course, the logistical challenges of ending poverty through direct transfer of cash from the super-rich to the super-poor would be massive. How would rich people identify these poor people? How would they transfer the money? Does anyone have to pay taxes or fees along the way? So many questions, so many problems.

But, Give Directly, a non-profit that gives unconditional cash transfers to poor people in Kenya and Uganda, is going to show just how it can be done. The organization recently announced that they will give $10 million to end poverty for 6,000* people in Kenya. It’s not totally clear who the rich donors are, but Vox reports that some venture capital and angel investor tycoons are involved. It’s great to see some rich people catching on to the project of rich people ending poverty. Good for them! They hope this will be part of a $30 million project to last for the next 10-15 years. This is fantastic and a real break-through.

The project is rightly being heralded as a big deal. It has several innovative elements:

It’s being framed as a “pilot” for a universal basic income. The idea of a universal or guaranteed basic income has been floating for years, mostly pushed by academics and eccentrics. More recently some governments have begun considering the idea and doing some pilots or smaller-scale experiments. The Give Directly project is bigger.

Some villages will get the minimum income. But other villages won’t. Both will be studied. The villages without the minimum income will provide a “control” group to measure what happens to the villages that do. So, they are creating a kind of experiment, which is scientific-ish. What will it show? Who knows. Maybe it will show interesting and important things that will convince other rich people to end poverty. Or maybe it won’t show very much.

The project will give cash, which is awesome. Not every problem can be solved with cash, but a lot of them can. One problem that can be solved with cash is lack of income. Cash transfers, by definition, increase income. Give Directly has been promoting cash transfers as a preferred mode of philanthropy (and development) for some years. And more power to them. Cash is underutilized, empowering, and flexible. Who wouldn’t want cash? Well, some “beneficiaries” actually prefer other things, like better public services or food – but most people like getting cash. To be honest, cash transfers aren’t really that new or innovative anymore. But the message hasn’t reached every quarter. For example, much of the US food aid program remains frozen in an expensive, inefficient commodity-transfer model. Would be great if Give Directly and rich people would help with the lobby effort to get the US government on board. Talk about leverage! That’s about $2 billion annually.

The use of a control group for learning from the pilot is an interesting contrast to another big effort at piloting aid and development, the Millennium Villages Project. The Millennium Villages Project, championed by Jeff Sachs, was much bigger and approached the challenge in a more holistic, but also conventional, manner. The success and value of the Millennium Villages Project is debated. One of the problems with the Millennium Villages Project is that the methods of selecting and studying the villages were not rigorous, making evaluating the project’s success and efficiency difficult, if not impossible.

All of this sounds great. Assuming the Give Directly project shows positive results – which seems likely given the existing experience with unconditional cash transfers – then hopefully the basic income can be scaled up to all poor people. Presumably, the rich people involved are already planning how to get their compatriots from Planet 1% to bring in the rest of the $80 billion needed to make cash transfers to the rest of the world’s extremely poor people.

But what if all those super rich people balk? What if they don’t want fork over the money? Or if they don’t find the results of the Give Directly pilot convincing? Or what if they don’t want to do things the Give Directly way? What then? Will the Give Directly project go the same way to many pilots and tests do in the development sector; showing enormous potential, but failing to secure the funding and support to scale up? Or will governments step in and take on the project?

The Give Directly pilot is meant to last “10 or 15 years.” That takes us pretty close to the 2030 deadline to achieve the #1 Sustainable Development Goal: ending poverty. So the timing is tight to take the pilot to a global scale. Of course, it’s not Give Directly’s responsibility to end poverty or to achieve the SDGs. It’s the responsibility of the governments that endorsed the SDGs last year. But it’s probably worth thinking about what role, if any, Give Directly’s pilot and a universal basic income might play.

* Not all the recipients would likely be below the global poverty level.

Leave a Reply

Author bio

Gawain Kripke

Gawain Kripke is the director of policy and research at Oxfam America and has more than 20 years of experience working on public policy and advocacy issues. His department conducts research and policy advocacy focusing on the effectiveness of foreign aid and development, climate change, trade and agriculture, humanitarian issues, and extractive industries.

Kripke is a frequent commentator on foreign aid, human rights, humanitarian issues, and agricultural policies in major news media, including The New York Times, CNN, NPR, BBC World News, and Marketplace. In addition, he has testified before Congressional committees.

At Oxfam, Kripke previously served as senior policy advisor on Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign, which aims to reform unfair trade rules so that international trade can become a powerful force for reducing global poverty.

Before joining Oxfam, he served as director of economic programs for the environmental organization Friends of the Earth. Kripke earned a BA in government from Harvard College, and has authored numerous opinion pieces and briefing papers on trade and development issues.

Washington, DC

Oxfam is a global organization working to end the injustice of poverty. We help people build better futures for themselves, hold the powerful accountable, and save lives in disasters. Our mission is to tackle the root causes of poverty and create lasting solutions.

Oxfam America is a 501(c)(3) organization. Gifts are tax deductible to the full extent allowable under the law.